


76. haunted by something still alive

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [58]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7881982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Thought you were dead,” she tells her sister’s body. “Shot you in the heart, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	76. haunted by something still alive

The monitors by Helena’s bed are all beeping, soothing sounds, and Helena is asleep in the hospital bed. Sarah hadn’t even had to show ID – the nurses had looked at her face and let her in, easy as that, easier than any time Felix ever had to fight his way to her hospital bed. She hates it: that their face makes them more family than the years and years she and Felix have spent in tiny hospital rooms for childbirth and broken bones.

There’s a shitty, uncomfortable chair next to the bed. Sarah sits in it. Some stupid thing in the back of her mind whispers that she should have brought flowers. What sort of flower says _I’m sorry for shooting you in the chest, but also I’m really not_? Lilies? Alison probably knows – but. Like hell is Sarah ever going to tell her.

Helena’s chest rises, falls. She’s stone-cold asleep. Sarah watches her and gnaws on the inside of her lip until she tastes the sting of rust and then stops.

“Thought you were dead,” she tells her sister’s body. “Shot you in the heart, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

Helena doesn’t answer her. Her brow doesn’t even twitch. Hating her is easy, and ugly, and easy. Sarah slips into it like a sweat-slippery finger slipping on a trigger. She could slap Helena in the face, right now, and not a single person in the world would care. She could kill her. Her breathing is shaky, ragged, and she can’t stop thinking about Helena’s face in that instant before she’d taken that chain and—

She rests her head in her hands, breathes. “You’re supposed to be dead,” she says to Helena, but Helena doesn’t answer. There’s just silence. Beep-beep-beep and Sarah’s crying, just like that, easy as hatred, easy as bullets. She says, like pleading: “Just _be dead_.”

But Helena isn’t. She’s here, and alive, and breathing more easily than Sarah is, and Sarah doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She has no idea what the hell she is going to do, if Helena doesn’t wake up and say _I’m sorry_ and also _I didn’t mean it_ and also _I forgive you_. Hell, maybe she will. Maybe Helena will sit up in that hospital bed and clip her nails short, stick wax on all her teeth so they don’t stay too sharp.

Or maybe she’ll wake up, say _it’s you_ , and wrap her hands around Sarah’s throat. Who knows. Flip a coin.

Maybe, Sarah thinks, she won’t wake up at all. Wouldn’t it be nice. She could love Helena like this, she knows it. If Helena was here, asleep, fluffy hair and fluttering eyelashes, Sarah could love her. It’s only the waking that brings them all this grief.

But what is Sarah going to _do_ with her. Why can’t Sarah just leave her here. Why can’t she just get up, and walk away – or, better yet, pull the plug and give Helena the gift of dying in her sleep. When she plunged that rebar into Helena’s side she didn’t think she was making her a promise. If she’d known, she would have – would have – well. Wouldn’t have.

She reaches out, without meaning to, and touches light fingertips to Helena’s hair. Helena’s eyelashes flutter but she keeps on not waking up, even as Sarah tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s clean. Someone washed her, while she was asleep and dreaming of – something. What do serial killers dream about, when they are lonely. What dark sad things. What wells do they drown in, when they are all alone?

Helena’s brow twitches, once, and she makes a sleep-smothered sound. Sarah opens her mouth and says “I’m here,” helplessly. I’m here. I wish I wasn’t, but I am.

Helena’s brow smoothes out, like she knows. She falls back asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [375\. reaper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10886244) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09)




End file.
